Da Plane! Da Plane!
For those that are too young to remember that quote, “Da Plane! Da Plane!” is from the original Fantasy Island TV show. And that particular line was from the midget known as Tattoo, Khan’s right-hand man. Or Mr. Roarke, whatever.
I bring up Tattoo because I may actually be getting my first tattoo in a couple of weeks. Not the TequilaCon variety of tattoo, which comes off within a few days, a REAL one.
That’s right, Mr. Wild & Crazy is tatless. But my pending road trip to Lexington, Kentucky for the party fest known as ConFab has me thinking about getting one. There’s going to be a tattoo excursion and I think I’m going along for it.
The problem with tattoos, for me anyway, is finding the right one. What the hell do you put on your body PERMANENTLY when you’re one of those people who bore fairly easily? It’s not like my desktop wallpaper, where I can change the picture dozens of times a day if I feel like it. Tattoos don’t come off. Not without lasers, at any rate, and I’ve yet to go peeling off layers of epidermis with laser beams…don’t feel like starting now, either.
So contemplating something cool enough to place on your body is difficult, especially when you’re thinking 40 years down the road. What’s cool enough, significant enough, to put on your arm or shoulder or the small of your back, that isn’t going to look positively ridiculous when you’re 82 years old and not the tight, lean, fighting machine you are today? (cough)
I don’t know the answer to that question, but I’m working on it. The only thing I can think of so far is to get the little cartoon smoking guy at the top of my blog. See, even when I quit smoking (and I will), I’m pretty sure that some iteration of the smoking dude will always appear here at 2HT. So that’s where I’m leaning at the moment.
Course, I could make that 14-hour drive to Kentucky in a couple of weeks and totally change my mind. I could wander into the tattoo parlor, see the needle, and say “No fucking way.” But for now, I’m feeling more and more like this may be my first ink. We’ll see. Thoughts?
Now for a meme. I got tagged by Kim for this Crazy 8’s meme. Haven’t done one in a while, so I thought I’d give it a go. I don’t tag people back, but feel free to yank it and put it on your own blog, of course.
To do list (i.e. “the rules”):
- Mention the person who tagged me, and I did !!
- Complete the list of 8’s, and I did !!
- Tag 8 bloggers & tell them I tagged them!
Eight things I am looking forward to:
- ConFab, June 11-13, roughly. Lots of friends, old and new.
- Road trip with Jill TO ConFab.
- Watching the “Reaper” series finale some time today.
- The magical room-moving fairies that are going to clean my current bedroom and move all my shit into the NEW bedroom.
- BlogHer ‘09, Chicago (July)! Rooming with Neil, a first time attendee, and a chick magnet.
- SecondHand Radio tomorrow night. My guest is my buddy Mike. Gonna be a blast.
- Sex. Just kidding, there’s virtually no chance of that happening any time soon.
- iPhone 3.0!
Eight things I did yesterday:
- Worked
- Went to Walgreens
- Had dinner with Mom & friends at the Olive Garden
- Watched far too much television.
- Hung out with Mindy and Sarah for a while last night.
- Played a fuckton of Zombieville USA on my iPhone.
- Listened to Adam Carolla’s podcast. Seriously? Best podcast on Earth.
- Smoked.
Eight things I wish I could do:
- Play piano.
- Have sex, maybe on the piano.
- Finish one of my frakking novels.
- Heal relationships.
- Travel the world.
- Escape my depression forever.
- Get a new pancreas so I can eat giant fishbowls full of Fruity Pebbles again.
- Marry Jaime Murray.
Eight shows I watch:
- Jeopardy
- Fringe
- Lost
- Heroes
- Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
- Leverage
- House
- Criminal Minds
Eight favorite fruits:
- Grapes
- Bananas
- Watermelon
- Cherries
- Pineapples
- Oranges
- Apples
- Peaches
Eight places I’d like to travel:
- Australia
- U.K.
- Netherlands
- Spain
- Hawaii
- Canada
- Africa
- Alaska
Eight places I’ve lived:
- Westhampton Beach, NY
- Alamogordo, NM
- England
- Biloxi, MS
- Dallas, TX
- San Antonio, TX
- Boca Raton, FL
- Sebring, FL
My Thanks to Sheila, Now Get Ready to Meet Mike
So due to a lack of forethought, I wound up hitting Thursday with no guests for SecondHand Radio. I nearly canceled last night’s episode, but went forward, thanks to a few Twitterers who encouraged me to do the show, anyway.
And my thanks to Sheila for calling in and being my impromptu guest. She was delightful. We learned a great many things about Sheila, mostly that she doesn’t believe in imposing bedtimes for 7-year-olds.
The episode is available for download, either at Talkshoe or on iTunes.
I’ll be lining up guests for the next 6 weeks or so. If you or someone you know is interested in being on the show, let me know.
Next week, my guest will be Mike Duggan, who also goes by Mic these days. Mike is an old offline friend of mine from high school. Yeah, that recent trip I took to Alamogordo, New Mexico? That’s where I know Mike from.
We spent countless hours in high school playing Dungeons and Dragons. It was me, Mike, my brother Chris, ANOTHER Chris, and Rob, primarily. Five of us squirreled away in the Travelodge (which Chris’ mom owned), hopped up on soda and potato chips, rolling 3d20 + 6. Ah, good times.
We all drew comics back then, drawing our own D&D characters on our character sheets. But Mike and Chris really had the cartoony thing down, so they often drew the rest of our characters, too.
Flash forward a while and Mike really developed his artistic skills. He’s worked on numerous comic books over the years – even had his own comic book produced. He did work for Disney Adventures magazine, storyboards for “The Tick” cartoon…in short, he really made things happen with a skill that I remember starting when I met him in art class in Mid High. Course, nowadays 9th and 10th grade have been combined into the same school as 11th and 12th in Alamogordo.
I got to meet up with Mike and Chris last year at Karlifornia 2008 and had a blast.
Mike is also now doing stand-up comedy in L.A. Yet the man does not have a blog. I bitched at him about that last year, but to no avail. He’s more cynical than I am, apparently, believing that if no one is paying him to write, he’s not going to bother.
So Mike, aka @micduggan on Twitter (at least he has that, and a Facebook profile), will be joining me next Thursday night at 10pm Eastern, 7pm Pacific.
I think you’ll dig him a lot.
Filed under 2HRadio, Humor | Comments (9)Karl TV
So “Chuck” is renewed, but “Terminator” and “Reaper” are canceled. It’s upfronts time for the major networks, always a bittersweet time of year. Every day this week, my heart will probably be broken over another cancellation. But what are you going to do? I mean, short of assassinate television executives who don’t know what the fuck they’re doing.
When I was a kid, shows were given a chance to find an audience. You didn’t yank shit off the air after only one or two episodes. If a show sucked, it sucked for a full season. And they left the schedule alone, too…no shuffling shows around willy nilly, moving them from Monday to Thursday, from Tuesday to Friday. You scheduled a show and it STUCK there all season. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what you call giving a show a chance to breathe, letting it find and build an audience.
Not any more. Getting involved with a new show nowadays is fraught with peril. What if I get invested and it’s a really good show but doesn’t get phenomenal ratings within 5 seconds of airing? They’ll cancel it after three episodes and another little piece of me shall die.
And am I the only one who shivers involuntarily at the sound of a beloved show being moved to the Friday Death Slot? Friday shows often fly straight down the TV crapper, no matter how good they are. OK, Ghost Whisperer and Numbers aside. I’ve lost many Friday shows and, for a while, vowed never to get invested in any new Friday show. The Fugitive, Freakylinks, Joan of Arcadia, Lone Gunmen, I could go on and on. Yeah, I’ve been burned, baby.
If I were a TV executive, I’d have the most kick-ass lineup on television. I can spot a piece of shit from planets away, and I also have a good eye for quality TV. I sure as hell wouldn’t be canceling great shows like Terminator or Pushing Daisies or Reaper or even Eli Stone (which I only saw half an episode of), only to make way for more crappy reality dancing/talent/rose-ceremony/Wipeout shows.
No more living and breathing by the weekly Nielsen ratings. Fuck the ratings. America knows what good TV is, what great storytelling is, what fantastic dialogue is. We stick with the shows we like – we’re loyal and we appreciate when networks appreciate our loyalty.
So I’d set up a great TV schedule for my network. Sure, there’d be quality stuff like Lost and Castle and Bones and Leverage, but I’d also bring back amazing shows such as Quantum Leap (which had the worst last episode in series television, ever) and The Greatest American Hero (where original hero William Katt teaches his son how to be a hero) and Highlander (because, really, what better things does Adrian Paul have to do?).
There’d be some reality TV, but it’d be GOOD reality TV…stuff like Deadliest Catch, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Ninja Warrior, Miami Ink, Marlin Fucking Perkins, and maybe a new show where ordinary citizens become hitmen and chase after Dane Cook for cash and prizes.
And there will be NO political press conferences interfering with prime time programming, either. If Barack Obama wants to speak publicly to the masses, he can schedule those press conferences for 6:30 PM, when the nightly fucking news is on. Or at noon. Or go on C-SPAN. People want to watch, they can turn on CNN or MSNBC or some such shit. The Prez will no longer preempt How I Met Your Mother or 24 or Deal Or No Deal. OK, he can do whatever the hell he wants with Deal Or No Deal because that’s the most retarded “game show” out there. Picking a number between 1 and 26 is NOT an hour-long show, idiots. How about Howie Mandel hosting a new show, like “Meat Thaw Marathon”?
Once I’d gotten my schedule together and presented it in Upfronts Week to the advertisers, I’d drop the next bombshell. I’d be up there on stage, looking quite dapper in my “FUCK THE RATINGS!” t-shirt and jeans, and I’d say:
“So, as you can see, next season on KARL-TV is looking magnificent! We’re very excited to have Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell back for Quantum Leap because the very notion that Sam never returns home is just ludicrous. Now, let’s talk advertising.
“KARL-TV is innovating yet again with a new commercial strategy. Instead of the standard 23 minutes of commercials in every broadcast hour, KARL-TV will show only FIVE minutes of commercials in every hour! This is not only going to please the viewers – who really don’t watch the ads out there now, thanks to Tivo and DVRs – but it’s going to benefit the companies, as well.
“Fewer ads means increased viewership and loyalty, AND it means your commercial message will get noticed since it’s not surrounded by OTHER messages. Having only 2-1/2 minutes of ads every 30 minutes makes the advertising real estate far more valuable.”
In other words, fewer ads, but I’ll charge more per ad. It’s a win-win, especially for KARL-TV.
Are you with me? Or are you looking to get heartbroken again and again, thanks to the current network morons in control of your viewing pleasure?
Filed under Rants, Television | Comments (40)
